Empathetic projections and affect reactions in examiners of ‘A’ level English and History

Abstract

The affective element of examiner thinking is an under-researched phenomenon. This paper explores the data from a ‘think aloud’ study, discussed in relation to the literature on decision-making, in which English and History examiners demonstrated a variety of affect reactions to scripts. They created detailed mental projections of candidates, with whom they created pseudo-dialogue, as seen elsewhere in the literature, and to whom they have empathetic affect reactions. Participants also attempted to separate themselves from their affect reactions, perceiving and mediating a potential cause of inaccuracy of judgement. The theory of cognitive dissonance is drawn on to suggest an explanation for examiners’ recurrent voicing of affect reactions while they construct them as irrelevant to the decision-making process.

Keywords:

• affect
• empathy
• examining
• essay marking

Acknowledgements

The data from which this paper is drawn were gathered as part of a larger doctoral study at the Oxford University Department of Education which was funded by an Economic and Social Sciences Research Council Quota Studentship, for which I am grateful. I would like to thank the Awarding Body and their examiners for allowing me access and agreeing to participate in the study. I also thank my supervisors Professor Gordon Stanley and Professor Ingrid Lunt for their support and guidance. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the AEA-Europe Conference in Oslo in November 2010.

Notes

1. In this paper a ‘senior examiner’ is a Principal Examiner (i.e. the most senior examiner for a unit, or for an option in a unit) or a Chief Examiner (the most senior examiner for an entire specification or subject) or their immediate deputies; a team leader (sometimes called senior examiners elsewhere in the literature) is an examiner who is experienced and who has responsibility for managing a team of examiners, and judging the quality of their marking; and an ‘examiner’ is the lowest rank, someone who is employed to mark an allocation but has no responsibility beyond that.

2. Gk. ἀπoστρoή: a rhetorical exclamation in which the speaker breaks off to address an imaginary person.